In message <[log in to unmask]>, at 16:11:30 on Mon, 31
Jan 2005, Charles Prescott <[log in to unmask]> writes
>If memory serves, the Belgian, Swedish and French DPA's all gave formal
>rulings that companies could send a message to their customers one time
>only to ask them if they would like to opt-in.
There are many people who suggest that this is a good idea, but it
doesn't scale. Companies have been signing up for broadband in the UK at
a rate of one every five minutes - would you be happy for each of those
to send an email to every address on a spammer's CD, politely asking for
permission to opt you in?
It wouldn't be so bad, but almost none comply with the Electronic
Commerce regulations which say that such emails MUST *also* be
immediately recognisable as unsolicited (I don't think anyone can argue
that they aren't unsolicited by their very nature). The most brutal way
is adding AVD: to the subject, I'd be interested in suggestions
regarding what would be less brutal, but still legal.
>The time frame to do that has lapsed. The position was founded on the
>premise that as long as the messge did not contain an offer, it was
>somehow less "commercial". In fact, it was founded on the fact that
>these DPA's appreciated that this change in law was potentially a
>commercial disaster and they wished to mitigate that.
The "Commercial Disaster" was that the companies who collected the email
addresses (for a moment, let's assume they did that on a one-to-one
basis, rather than buying a spammer's CD) forgot to ask for future
permissions - which would have been both easy and entirely acceptable. A
bit more publicity of high profile failures of that sort might
concentrate the minds of those who can be prevented from making that
mistake in the future.
There were a few in the UK in the early days, but most people have
forgotten them. It cost our leading grocery chain about £20M to clean up
after one such disaster of omission, I'm told. Although it was in the
related field of passing loyalty card information to associates.
> I must say a Constitution with a bill of rights that says political
>discourse is protected is a nice thing to have, in my view. While
>political party propaganda may be annoying or welcome, and anywhere in
>between, I fail to see that it is "commercial" as in "unsolicited
>commercial e-mail".
Political parties have become commercialised, just look at the funds
raised for the recent Presidential campaigns, for example. If
unsolicited emails were the only way they could make political speeches,
then there might be some merit in allowing them (but that's a thin end
of a wedge for any kind of "appeal" - do you restrict it to people
running for office, or do you include every lobby and pressure group,
which these days extends to charities. How would you classify
Greenpeace?)
>Focusing on a medium and banning "all" unsolicited speech therein does
>seem to me dangerous for political liberties.
The Internet gives freedom of speech to all - you put up a website. If
you can drive people to that website (eg by lots of expensive media
advertising, or painting your URL on the front of the shop) *then* you
can ask them for permission to send emails in the future.
There may be freedom of speech, but there's no
freedom-to-make-me-listen, and unsolicited email steps over that line in
the sand.
--
Roland Perry
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